EFCC seized jewelry worth N14.6bn, houses worth $80m from ex-minister Diezani

Global Patriot Staff May 28, 2021 Local, News Leave a comment 167 Views

By Femi Ogunshola

Abuja, May 28, 2021

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has seized jewelry worth N14 billion from former Minister of Petroleum, Diezani Allison-Madueke.

The EFCC Chairman, Mr Abdulrasheed Bawa, made this known at the House of Representatives ad hoc committee investigating the assessment and status of recovered loot on Friday in Abuja.

He also said that the Houses seized from the former Minister are also valued at 80 million dollars.

The anti graft chairman said that Diezani’s jewelry are still in the custody of the agency, adding that they had not been auctioned but had been finally forfeited to the Federal Government.

He said that court processes, procedures and administrative exigencies had stalled some of the seized assets to be auctioned by the anti graft agency.

Bawa however said that the agency would henceforth deal with the seized assets case by case at the courts in order to quickly dispose of them.

“Already the Federal Government has set up a committee under the chairmanship of the Solicitor-General for the Federation and I think they are working tirelessly.

This, according to him, is to ensure that assets that are not only recovered by the EFCC are disposed of.

“We have EFCC representatives on that committee and we believe at the end of the day Nigerians are going to appreciate what that committee will come out with in terms of the mandate given to them,” he said.

Asked when the committee would wind up so the assets could be disposed, Bawa said that he was not a member of the committee to know how soon the assets were going to be disposed.

Bawa said that in the quest to transform the agency, it would soon digitalise its processes, adding that it had also created and upgraded four additional departments to restore confidence.

He listed the departments as Intelligence, procurement, Internal Affairs and the Information Communication Technology Departments.

He said that there was no loot that had been re-looted as is being speculated, stressing that going forward, the EFCC would be different and Nigerians would be the better for it.

He said that he would always honour the National Assembly to account for what the agency had done, adding that public servants come and go but the institution would remain.